“Let me,” he said, and Mirin, in her shock, relented. She looked so tired and worn, and her bowl was still full of parritch.
It worried him.
He joined Frae at the wash barrel, and she gave a little gasp when he began to dunk the bowls beneath the water.
“This is my chore,” she said. As if she would fight him for it.
“Do you know what, Frae?”
She hesitated and then said, “What?”
“This used to be my chore too, when I was your age. I will wash and you can dry. How does that sound?”
She still looked perplexed, but then Jack handed her a freshly washed bowl, and she took it and began to wipe it dry with a rag. They worked in rhythm with each other, and when the table was clear, Jack said, “Will you take me on a tour of the yard, sister? It’s been so long since I was home, I don’t remember where everything is.”
Frae was ecstatic. She threw the door open, grabbed her shawl when Mirin chided her to, and led Jack through the kail yard. She pointed out every single vegetable and herb and fruit they were growing, her voice as sweet as a bell that never ceased ringing. Jack patiently listened, but he was gradually taking them in the direction of the northern face of the house, where his shutters sat open to welcome the sunlight.
He studied his window, as well as the strip of grass that stretched between it and the fence. There was nothing to indicate someone or something had approached last night. Again he wondered if he had dreamt it all, but he stayed at the window, unable to ignore his disconcerted musings.
“Frae? Has someone ever knocked on your bedroom shutters before? In the middle of the night?”
Frae stopped walking. “No. Why?” And then she gasped and rushed to say, “Oh! I’m so sorry to have taken your room! I hope you aren’t angry with me!”
Jack blinked, surprised. “I’m not angry at all, Frae. I don’t need a room anymore, to be honest.”
Her copper brows quirked as she began to fiddle with the ends of her braids. “But why? Don’t you want to remain here with us?”
Why did her inquiry meet him like a spear? He suddenly didn’t want to disappoint her, and Jack had never cared about such things before.
“I don’t mind sharing a room with Mum,” she added, as if that would convince him to stay. “Truly.”
“Well … I do have to return to my school,” he said, watching her hopeful expression fall. “But I’ll be here all summer.”
The promise spilled from his mouth before he could think better of it. Before he could remind himself that a part of him still hoped to leave by the end of the week. He couldn’t break his word now, not when he had given it to Frae.
Summer was a long time in a child’s mind. Frae grinned and bent down to pick a few violets from the grass. Jack watched as her dainty fingers traced the petals, pollen smearing like gold on her skin.
“I found some wildflowers on my bed last night,” Jack said. “Did you pick them for me, Frae?”
She nodded, her dimples flaring in her cheeks again.
“Thank you. It was a thoughtful gift.”
“I can show you where I picked them!” she cried, and he was shocked when she reached for his hand, as if she had held it countless times before. “It’s this way, Jack. I know where all the best flowers grow.”
She tugged on his arm, completely unaware that a piece of him had melted.
“Wait a moment, Frae,” he said, kneeling before her so their gazes would align. “Will you promise me something?”
She nodded, her trust like a knife in his side.
“This will probably never happen, but if you ever hear the shutters rattle like something is trying to open them, knocking on them, promise me that you will not answer it,” Jack said. “You will wake Mum and stay with her.”
“Or I could come wake you, right, Jack?”
“Yes,” he said. “You can always come to me if you are afraid or uncertain about something. And even when you are in the yard, I want you to make sure that you tell Mum where you are, and that you remain near her, within sight of the cottage. Always take someone with you to pick flowers. Can you promise me that also?”
“I promise. But Mum has already told me such.”
“Good,” he said. But within, he told himself, I have to stay here until this mystery of the missing lasses is solved. I have to see this through, even if it takes longer than summer.
“Is that what happened to Eliza and Annabel?” Frae asked with a somber expression. “Did a spirit knock on their windows?”
Jack hesitated. He didn’t want to scare her more than necessary, but he remembered Adaira’s words from the day before. One girl had gone missing on her walk home from school. The other, while tending the sheep in the pasture. He thought back on the stories Mirin had once told him. Legends where spirits—often benevolent ones—thrived in the yard and were even welcomed inside, such as when a fire was lit in the hearth. But he had never heard of one approaching a house and forcibly entering. Not that it was impossible, as the spirits often accepted the gifts left for them on porches and thresholds, but it seemed that even the most dangerous of beings preferred to be in the wild, where their powers were strongest.
“I’m not sure, Frae,” Jack said.
“Mum says the spirits in our yard are good. As long as I am home or stay on the roads or at school, the folk can’t trick me. They watch over me, especially when I wear my plaid.”
Jack’s eyes drifted to Frae’s shawl, which she had knotted crookedly over her collarbones. He noted its shimmer of enchantment. The shawl was green from summer bracken and nettles, with a vein of madder red and lichen gold. Colors of the earth spirits, harvested and crushed and soaked to make dyes. He wondered what secret was woven into that pattern, and for once he was glad of Mirin’s skill.
He smiled at his little sister, hoping to ease her worry. “Mum’s right. Now show me where the best flowers grow.”
Torin was walking the nook of the marsh, searching for the missing girls, when he spotted Jack standing beside a crown of rocks, waiting to speak with him. Torin took his time. His clothes were wrinkled stiff from the rain, and his eyes bleary from a long night, but he continued to comb through the wet grass. His boots squelched, startling meadow pipits in their morning foray as his guards fanned out behind him. Eventually he reached Jack and the shadows of the rocks. Torin noticed a flower was tucked into Jack’s dark hair, but he said nothing of it.
He had finally met Frae then.
“No sign of either lass?” Jack said.
Torin shook his head. “Not a trace.”
“I think you should search the western hills, up by my mum’s croft.”
“Why is that?” Torin knew he sounded skeptical, but all he could think of was how the spirits had been thwarting him. The wind had blown away any markings in the grass. The storm had broken, impeding him at every turn, and even now the rain sat in puddles, destroying any evidence of where the lasses might have wandered off to.
He feared the worst—that he would not be able to find either girl. The conversation he had had with Eliza’s mother last week still rattled in his skull, like broken bones.
Why would the folk take my daughter? Can I strike a bargain with them to get her back?